The present invention relates to a call control apparatus for a pay phone for performing a call service on the basis of value information of a card such as a prepaid card.
In local call charge systems in various foreign countries, a unit call time and a unit call fee in an initial call period are often different from those in an additional call time. For example, in the United States of America, 25 cents are charged for the initial five minutes as the initial call time from the start of a call and 5 cents are additionally charged every minute in the subsequent additional call time. Of all pay phones connected to a telephone network, a pay phone which accepts a prepaid card for storing message rate information corresponding the prepaid amount offers a call service while charging an amount corresponding to a message rate to the inserted prepaid card.
When a caller enjoys the call service from the prepaid card, and the message rate corresponding to an amount of less than 25 cents is stored as a remaining message rate upon an on-hook operation, he cannot receive another local call service using this prepaid card because the remaining message rate represents an amount less than the unit call fee in the initial call time. This prepaid card is valueless although an unused message rate is stored in the prepaid card, thus causing a large loss to a user.